Thu, May 21st - 7:12AM

Golden Age of Comics

Green Lantern

The Green Lantern, created by artist Mark Nodell and writer writer Bill Finger, first appeared in July 1940 in All American Comics.

The Green Lantern's real name was Alan Scott who, after a railway crash, came into possession of a magic lantern which spoke to him and said it would bring power. From this, he crafted a magic ring which gave him a wide variety of powers. The limitations of the ring were that it had to be "charged" every 24 hours by touching it to the lantern for a time, and that it did not work on objects made of wood.

The Green Lantern was a popular character in the 1940s, as well as his own title he was featured in All-American Comics and in Comic Cavalcade along with Flash and Wonder Woman. He was a charter member of the Justice Society of America, whose adventures ran in All Star Comics. The Green Lantern comic book was cancelled with issue #38 in 1949.

Thu, May 7th - 3:09AM

Golden Age of Comics

Illustrated Classics

From 1941-1967, Gilberton Publications produced 167 Illustrated Classics in the U.S. and several more in Britain and Europe.

Russian-born publisher Albert Lewis Kanter (1897–1973) created the series under the name Classic Comics with its debut issues being The Three Musketeers, followed by Ivanhoe and The Count of Monte Cristo. The series name changed in March 1947 to Classics Illustrated with issue 35 The Last Days of Pompeii.

The first books had 64 pages which was reduced to 56 pages in 1943 then to 48 pages in 1948. Between 1941 and 1962, 200 million copies of the books were sold. Most Illustrated Classics titles were continuously in print from the first time they hit the newsstand until 1971. Ivanhoe, for example, had 25 different printings over a period of 30 years.